Rams Matthew Stafford Makes First Public Comments on Health Status

Stafford, who will take things day to day, has not committed to playing week one. However, he made it clear that he missed football and is thankful to be back.

Stafford makes his first public address regarding injury

“I'm not going to talk too much in specifics or anything like that, but as far as what I've done, everything under the sun," stated Stafford. "I feel like obviously our guys here have a great program, doing everything we can to try and get to feeling as good as I can. I’ve done everything I can possibly do. I’ve done a ton of research just trying to help myself out. The good thing is, I’ve felt pretty good the last couple days out there practicing. I was able to do even a little bit more than I thought I was going to be able to do the first day and then I’ve just been trying to stack days. Backs are sometimes interesting things. It's not cut and dry with what's what and how you're going to feel. I really appreciate our team, our head coach and everybody taking a day-to-day approach with me doing everything they can to try and help me out. I have a huge feeling of responsibility to our team to do what's right by them and I'm trying to do that to the best I can day in to day out.”

Stafford continues to work with Reggie Scott, the Rams' Senior Vice President of Sports Medicine and Performance, in order to maintain his ability to play. From conversations I've had, Scott is one of the best in the business, always looking for the next advancement in medicine to help the team.

Stafford's mind is in the right place, and his body is returning to form quickly. Stafford did say that his back issue was not caused by one incident but something that crept up on him during his post-minicamp training.

“I'm in a good place," stated Stafford. "Mentally, the first day, I wasn’t expecting to do as much as I did and I felt pretty good, so I just kind of kept going. [Head] Coach [Sean McVay] was cool enough to let me push myself and he knows that I know myself and how I feel so he let me kind of go. It felt like I hadn't been out there in a while and [I felt] physically fine, but just seeing the defense operating and doing all of this stuff. This is my third day, call it in a row or third practice day, and definitely felt a whole lot more like myself out there today. I just want to continue to do everything I possibly can to be ready for the guys in the locker room. Every single day that we have an opportunity to go out there and get better, I’m going to do everything I can to be out there while still being smart and knowing we have something that deserves a little attention.”